Suburban students prepare to compete in national spelling bee

Nafisa Asad of Herrick Middle School in Downers Grove will compete at the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. (Dawn Rhodes, Chicago Tribune)

Nafisa Asad's plans for the end of the school year did not initially include a trip to Washington, D.C.

But after correctly spelling the word "balsam," the eighth-grader at Herrick Middle School in Downers Grove topped 27 other students at the DuPage County Spelling Bee back in February, earning the 13-year-old a spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 27-29.

Nafisa, who has competed in spelling bees since third grade, said she wasn't expecting to get this far.

"We are all so proud of her and wish her the best," said her principal, Jason Lynde.

Other suburban students competing include Alia Abiad of McClure Junior High School in Western Springs winner of the suburban Cook County title, and Meghana Kamineni of Homer Junior High School in Homer Glen, winner of the Will County competition.

Adam R. Kastler of West Oak Middle School in Mundelein, Lucas Michael Urbanski of Immanuel Lutheran School in Crystal Lake and Anika Patel Cambridge Lakes Charter School in Pingree Grove also are competing.

Both Alia Abiad and Meghana Kamineni will be making their second trip to Washington, having competed in the bee last year.Lucas has competed in the three Scripps National Spelling Bees and tied for 19th place in 2013, according to the website

"It's nice to know how the bee works, what it's like to be on TV and how to deal with the pressure," said Alia, who also tied for 19th last year. "I'm excited to see how well I can do this year."

Nafisa's mother said she followed her older sister into the spelling bee world and that she always has had an affinity for the written word.

"She started reading on her own when she was 4," Farah Cheema said. "She has a very good memory."

Nafisa also can speak Arabic, Urdu and French, something Cheema said bolsters her daughter's aptitude for vocabulary.

"I like the history of the word, finding out the origin," Nafisa said. "It doesn't really mean anything if you can spell the word but you don't know what it means."

Nafisa studies words out of a dictionary for about two hours a night, occasionally writing out words to help her better absorb them. For her first trip to the national competition, she said her hope is to progress past the opening rounds.

"My goal would be to get to the semifinals," she said.

Officials say 281 spellers across the country will vie for this year's title, including 18 from Illinois.

The bee starts with a computer-based test on May 27 then two rounds of preliminaries with oral spelling on stage on May 28. Semifinalists take another computer-based test on May 28 and do two more rounds of spelling on stage. Students accumulate points based on the number of words they spell correctly through all these rounds and have a two-minute limit on stage to spell a word.

The semifinals and finals are scheduled for May 29. All of the rounds will be broadcast on the various ESPN channels.

All spellers receive a Merriam-Webster dictionary, a membership to Encyclopedia Britannica and a subscription to Microsoft Office. Semifinalists and finalists also will receive cash prizes.

Spellers from Illinois have won the title only twice since the bee started in 1925. The most recent Illinois champion was in 1985 when then 13-year-old Balu Natarajan of Bolingbrook won by correctly spelling "milieu." Natarajan later was interviewed for the 2002 Oscar-nominated documentary, "Spellbound," profiling eight competitors in the 1999 national competition.